By Mick Mitsis

The year 2004 will be marked in the industry history books as the year the satellite communications business truly began to resurface out of its economic challenges with new managerial faces, businesses and long-awaited foundations for future applications finally turning from paper business plans into realities. This past year was also hallmarked with executives possessing a vast amount of industry drive, ambition and a will to move forward and upward. Likewise, 2004 also showcased examples of successful business management that involved high profit margins for companies that were operating in the red for many years.

It is achievements such as these that Via Satellite magazine celebrates and recognizes in our annual Satellite Executive of the Year award. Each year, the Access Intelligence Satellite Group develops a list of leading candidates for the prize given to the industry executive we believe has made the most significant contribution to the satellite marketplace throughout the past calendar year. Below is our short list of top nominees in the running for the award. Via Satellite‘s Satellite Executive of the Year 2004 will be honored on March 24 at the SATELLITE 2005 conference and exhibition in Washington, D.C. We look forward to seeing you there when we announce the winner.

Larry Boisvert

PRESIDENT AND CEO, TELESAT CANADA

The year 2004 will be benchmarked as one of Telesat Canada’s most significant years in its 36-year history. Under Larry Boisvert’s leadership, the Ottawa, Canada-based satellite operator received recognition among its peers, truly enabled commercial broadband and made significant strides within the broadcasting community.

Most notably, North American consumers and businesses finally have access to broadband services. The long-awaited Anik F2 spacecraft was launched, making it the first satellite to fully commercialize Ka-band–delivering two-way broadband services. The satellite also provides new capacity for a wide range of broadcasting and telecommunications services across North America.

But while Telesat was breaking new ground with Anik F2, it also made headway with its established services for broadcasters. Most notably, it installed a new digital uplink system for CTV Inc. as part of a six-year contract that will provide the Canadian broadcasting company with flexibility to distribute television programming and give it a competitive edge over its rivals. The new channels will allow CTV to handle last-minute changes to its schedules more easily than in the past. CTV will devote four channels to distributing national programming, three to replacing terrestrial fiber routes and one to accommodating special requirements.

With such innovations, Telesat Canada also received the 2004 Frost & Sullivan Regional Satellite Operator Award.

Telesat earned this distinction for its strategy and product innovation, which have given the company a competitive advantage over both regional and global operators. Frost & Sullivan gives the Regional Satellite Operator Award to the operator that best competes against all other operators in a region, showing increased revenue, broadened service or product offerings, and strategies that give the company a leading edge over its competition.

As such, Boisvert assures his place at the pinnacle of satellite operations for years to come.

Cameron Hunter

PRESIDENT AND CEO, NORSAT INTERNATIONAL INC.

Maintaining a profitable business is a challenge for any seasoned executive, but a little more than one year at the helm was all Norsat International President and CEO Cameron Hunter needed to turn the Canadian satellite technology company’s losses into profits.

The Vancouver, British Columbia-based provider of satellite products for data transmissions has a 27-year legacy of notable engineering achievements that were not as profitable as its competition’s prior to Hunter’s ascension to the company’s top post. With a customer-centric focus, Hunter embarked on a growth strategy that was based on solving the real- world, near-term challenges of its equipment buyers.

To begin the turnaround, Norsat needed to cut costs in different areas but also shore up its sales force, especially in the portable-terminal business. In addition, the company adopted small but important customer-friendly changes, such as having someone answer the phone throughout the day when a customer calls rather than using an answering machine to take messages when the receptionist is at lunch.

Hunter also focused on investments for new product development and upgrades to existing ones. For the first nine months of 2004, product development expenses fell 60 percent to $1.2 million, compared with $2.9 million for the same period in 2003. In addition, Norsat’s gross margins rose 52 percent during third-quarter 2004, compared with 34 percent for the same period in 2003. The results are due, in large part, to growth in the portable terminals arena as well as rising sales momentum from its initial work with satellite newsgathering companies and with the U.S. government. Sales of portable satellite terminals, specifically, reached $3 million during third quarter 2004, up 163 percent from the previous quarter. Norsat introduced the product line during fourth quarter 2003 and demand from customers has been brisk.

Executing financial business strategies, keen market understanding and customer-centric selling are just some of the characteristics Hunter delivered in 2004. So whatever the fast-paced broadcasting environment demands from equipment manufacturers in the future, Hunter has not only solidified Norsat as a formidable equipment provider for satellite- enabled content distributors, but his business tactics demonstrate the foresight needed to stay one step ahead of the competition.

John Kealey

PRESIDENT AND CEO, IDIRECT TECHNOLOGIES

To grow a business is one thing. It is another to introduce new products, land significant contracts, expand the workforce and maintain a vision for how a business should be run during a year filled with challenges for satellite applications. That is exactly what John Kealey did for Herndon, Virginia-based iDirect Technologies in 2004. For this privately held company that develops broadband IP hardware and software that enables bi-directional Internet connections via satellite, 2004 marked a year where the company deflated its competition and doubled its revenue. In addition, iDirect delivered the most star topology hubs in the industry.

iDirect annunced an entirely new product line that allows for infinite scalability for a hub platform that enables any number of networks to be controlled from a single point and scaling to multiple thousands of remote sites. Likewise, it achieved FIPS 140-2 (federal encryption standards) certification for its satellite router product making iDirect the only company to offer built-in certified encryption on this type of product.

But such milestones were not the only gains iDirect garnered in 2004. To name a few, the company won a military contract for the U.S. Army’s Connect the Logistician Program. This project allows combat support personnel to transmit supply requisitions in real time. The initial network launch will call for 200 units to be deployed immediately with a growth potential of more than 1,000 units throughout this year.

Likewise, iDirect expanded into the Latin American and Asian markets in response to the growing demand for broadband access, particularly networks that can support voice, video and broadband IP over satellite. In addition, the company announced that the Puerto Rico Department of Education selected it to support a contract to provide high-speed Internet connectivity to 1,539 school locations throughout Puerto Rico.

These are just a few examples of iDirect’s achievements. Through Kealey’s leadership, iDirect won recognition as the seventh fastest growing technology company in the U.S. by Deloitte and Touche and Kealey made the top three ranking of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of The Year award. As such, Kealey assures his place as an innovative leader destined to further establish his niche within the global satellite market.

Leslie Klein

PRESIDENT AND CEO, C-COM SATELLITE SYSTEMS INC.

Ottawa, Canada-based C-Com Satellite Systems Inc. found in its eighth year of operation that deploying an innovative and cost-effective technology in the slowly growing satellite broadband market niche ultimately can lead to profits.

The company, founded by President and CEO Leslie Klein and two other engineers in 1997, turned in a profit $23,846 during the second quarter and was able to put consecutive profitable quarters together this past fiscal year. FY04 indeed showed undeniable progress. The company only lost $67,562, compared with a loss of $966,537 for the prior fiscal year and FY04 revenues climbed 42 percent from the previous fiscal year.

But the good news does not stop with C-Com’s financial picture. The company’s stable of clients in 2004 reached virtually all four corners of the globe. Ericsson, Telstra, Telesat Canada, Satmex, InfoSat, CTV and Global Television, and Satlynx have deployed C-Com’s iNetVu mobile technology. C-Com’s satellite-based products and services are serving clients throughout Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, Australia, Mexico, Latin America and the Middle East.

The ultimate users of C-Com’s capabilities include government agencies, film production companies, oil and gas exploration ventures and rural fire fighting teams worldwide.

Like many in the satellite broadband arena, Klein never lost sight of this market’s potential and 2004 proved that perseverance does pay off. Even though satellite broadband service providers generally have been unprofitable, C-Com is finding that providing technology for them is a viable and promising business.

Klein’s unrelenting pursuit for building a strong name for his company in this new broadband frontier made 2004 one of the most significant years for C-Com. Now with that foundation firmly in place and as the satellite broadband market grows in the years to come, so should C-Com’s revenues and profits.

Fred Kornberg

CHAIRMAN, CEO AND PRESIDENT, COMTECH TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP.

Strategic vision and a relentless pursuit of quality products and diversified services hallmark Comtech Telecommunications Corp.’s business, and 2004 ushered in one of the strongest business years for the company’s satellite products and services.

Under Fred Kornberg’s leadership, the corporation achieved $223 million revenue in FY04, representing a 28.4 percent increase from 2003–a significant increase given the economic challenges facing this market segment.

More specifically for its subsidiary Comtech EF Data Corp, Kornberg focused this division’s management team on delivering methods of optimizing satellite communications for the industry at large. From new modulation techniques to fulfilling offerings in great demand within the GSM market, Kornberg took this division to new heights.

For example, Kornberg launched the development of new modulation techniques that offer performance and efficient means of blending signals for transmission over satellite networks. Specific modulation methods included the first commercial deployment of 64-QAM in a high data rate satellite modem, allowing a simplex STM-1 carrier to be accommodated on a 36 MHz transponder. This development was a result of market requirements from circuit restorial and disaster recovery providers and from satellite operators that needed to increase data rates while decreasing occupied bandwidth and reducing required power.

In addition, Kornberg led a team in the identification of vendors with offerings that would support the cellular industry’s rollout of 2.5G and 3G networks, based on the needs of the GSM market for satellite communications solutions. After searching, Comtech acquired Memotec, whose product line of access devices and voice gateways allows customers to consolidate multi-service traffic over common packet-based network infrastructures. Now, customers get a turnkey solution for cellular backhaul over satellite.

Indeed, Kornberg’s foresight into the ongoing convergence of voice, data and video traffic over hybrid networks led to such business initiatives in 2004, as well as to the evolution of an integrated IP-enabled satellite modem and network and capacity management system. Through this development, the company offers clients the ability to adjust bandwidth usage based on application, load or schedule. This type of business management is what tends to separate the leaders from the followers.